The Liberal Democrats will vote on whether to agree that menstruation is ‘not just a women’s issue’ but also one that affects trans people.
Members at its annual conference in Bournemouth next month will be asked to agree that periods ‘also affect some trans and non-binary people’ as part of a wider conference motion on period poverty that includes a call for better access to sanitary products.
It also wants better education for children and teachers ‘to ensure an appreciation for the lived experience of menstruation’.
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It comes after party leader Sir Ed Davey made headlines in May by saying a woman can ‘quite clearly’ have a penis in a discussion on trans rights.
Sir Ed was asked for his views on the issue during a wide-ranging radio phone-in.
A caller named Mary asked him on LBC to explain ‘what is a woman’, saying she was a tactical voter asking ‘on behalf of 51 per cent of the population’.
Sir Ed told her ‘the vast majority of people whose biological sex is a woman when they were birth (sic), they feel they’re women … but there’s this very small number of people who don’t feel like that’.
Presenter Nick Ferrari then twice asked: ‘Can a woman have a penis?’ Eventually, the Lib Dem leader replied: ‘Well, quite clearly.’
The conference motion was brought forward by the party’s branch in Lambeth, south London, and the Young Liberals.
It states: ‘Menstruation is not just a women’s issue, and also affects some trans and non-binary people.’
Elsewhere it asks the conference to note that ‘period products are a human right, not a luxury’, and demands the Government ‘introduces a right for people in England to access a choice of free period products’.
A Lib Dem spokesman said: ‘Period poverty is an issue that needs addressing urgently. At Liberal Democrat conference, we will be debating policies to deal with the cost-of-living crisis and the crisis in our NHS both caused by this chaotic Conservative Government.’